The Health and Social Care Act 2012 introduced significant amendments to the NHS Act 2006. This guidance supports two legal duties, requiring clinical commissioning groups and commissioners in NHS England to enable:

• patients and carers to participate in planning, managing and making decisions about their care and treatment through the services they commission
• the effective participation of the public in the commissioning process itself, so that services reflect the needs of local people.

Transforming Participation in Health and Care has been developed by NHS England with a wide range of stakeholders and partners and its purpose is to support commissioners to improve individual and public participation and to better understand and respond to the needs of the communities they serve.

It highlights a range of ways in which NHS commissioners can fulfil their statutory responsibilities and seize the opportunity to deliver personalised and responsive care to all. It includes a wide range of tools, resources and case studies that commissioners will find useful when developing their own responses.

The guidance is a starting point and we will be working with partners to develop further resources to support commissioners to develop their approaches to both individual and public participation. We would really like to hear your feedback and to know how people are using the guidance and what else you would useful.  Over the coming months we will be working with partners to develop further resources to support commissioners to develop their local approach to transforming participation.

Please do contact us if you would like to be involved with this or have questions. For more information please contact england.nhs.participation@nhs.net.

The document is in interactive pdf format. To navigate, use the arrow buttons on either side of each page or locate a specific section using the tool bars within the document.

• See also Tim Kelsey’s latest blog – Personalised care plans will give patients control of their own health